The curative and therapeutic potential of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) offers much promise, as these multipotent cells are currently being tested in more than 300 clinical trials in a range of diseases. ...

Hematopoietic stem cells are now routinely used to treat patients with cancers and other disorders of the blood and immune systems, but researchers knew little about the progenitor cells that give rise to them during embryonic ...

Cell migration is highly coordinated and occurs in processes such as embryonic development, wound healing, the formation of new blood vessels, and tumour cell invasion. For the successful control of cell ...

Hormones—regulatory biochemicals produced by the body—were first identified over 100 years ago. Since then, improvements in researchers' understanding of the key role that hormones play as chemical messengers ...

A study conducted by Marie Kmita's team at the IRCM, in collaboration with Josée Dostie at McGill University, shows the importance of the chromatin architecture in controlling the activity of genes, especially those required ...

The progress a baby makes in the first year of life is amazing: a newborn can only wave its arms and legs about randomly, but not so long after the baby can reach out and pick up a crumb from the carpet. ...

One of the main mechanisms the body uses to protect itself against cancer is to switch off defective cells by making them senescent; these cells do not die but stop dividing: their life cycle stops. A team of researchers ...

It is difficult to underestimate the importance of telomerase, an enzyme that is the hallmark of both aging and the uncontrolled cell division associated with cancer. In an effort to understand and control ...

The cerebral cortex is the most complex and vital structure in our brain. It is the nerve centre for those "higher" functions that characterise our species, such as language and abstract thought. The nerve cells – or neurons ...

(Medical Xpress)—Scientists have long recognized retinoic acid – a compound the body produces by metabolizing vitamin A – as crucial to embryonic development. Either too much or too little retinoic acid during gestation ...

The invasion of brain-tumor cells into surrounding tissue requires the same protein molecule that neurons need to migrate into position as they differentiate and mature, according to new research from the University of Illinois ...

Stem cells found in mouth tissue can not only become other types of cells but can also relieve inflammatory disease, according to a new Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC study in the Journal of Dental Research.